South Korean regulator worried Apple, Google, may be working around app store payment choice law South Korea's Communications Commission (KCC) said on Tuesday it is investigating Google, Apple and domestic app store operator One Store Co. over sneaky ways the companies may be dodging the country's in-app payment laws. The regulator's announcement of the probe follows provisional inspections of all three stores since May …
There may not be specific laws, but the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK (for example) has fairly wide-ranging powers without them.
The problem (as in SK) would seem to be that companies with deep pockets could draw out the process of investigation and compliance with proposed remedies almost indefinitely.
" It is up to third party payment systems to be smooth though so it will not be a hassle to use."
And that's the rub. Do you know how many road blocks Gapple can throw up that prevent that being the case? Their own payment systems have privileged access to the system and can do things a third party system can't hope to compete with.
These really need to be system components that are installed with elevated privileges by the OS and made available to client apps that request them.
There are so many opportunities not possible with today's archaic payment systems. Micropayments and freemium business models are a good match. User to user payments. It does not and should not look like anything we know. However monopolies block it.
True, but requiring alternate payment systems for in-app payments might eventually force them to operate their app stores for free. Already most apps are "free" with in-app payments required to get useful functionality to work or prevent ads that fill the screen and make you wait before you can clear them.
When app vendors think "well I can charge $10 for my app and keep $7 or I can make it free to download, charge $10 in-app to begin using it, and I'll keep it all $10" why should we expect to see ANY non-free apps?
I guess that would solve the third party app store issue, as no third party app store could survive if they knew they wouldn't ever make a penny in revenue.
In app payment has nothing to do with appstores. They may share a payment system or not.
The economy behind appstore is interesting but in- app payment require much more innovation than app store payment which can probably do with current models.
Lack of good payment systems means that ads are the only realistic source of income for many types of apps.
It is impossible to understand why people clutter up a mobile with unwanted junk. I have never purchased anything from a so-called app store, why would I? The stores demonstrated what a pit of vipers they were years ago, with kids running up monstrous bills. So, had a simple rule, never I put any financial instrument near them. I use different cards as the humour takes me, when paying for things, so, sorry no need for juggling with a 'payment system' on a mobile either. My mobile is stuck away in a pocket, unlikely to get dropped, or grabbed, even now, it probably does not know what a sunny day looks like. Do I need new systems to make wasting money easier, why would I?
The issue of clutter is the unwanted junk installed by the manufacturer and not removable. As for installing other apps, I don't have many, but I have some that I use because they meet a need. That's the thing, if you have a need and there's an app to meet that need - why not use it ?
People just going nuts and filling the phone with all sorts of crap is a completely different issue and nothing to do with whether you are forced to use just the one store.
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